James and I braved rain and wind to see art and survived to share it with all of you.
On Saturday in Chelsea the highlights were:
- Jeff Whetstone: Zoolatry at Wallspace - black and white photography of humans and other creatures as nature specimens, including a sexy turkey hunter in camouflage
- Tim Lokiec at LFL Gallery -- Zach continues to find wacky and interesting painters. Disclosure: we bought two works on paper of Tim's.
Tim Lokiec, "Plateau Sigma II", oil on panel, 32" x 35", 2003
We also saw Clemente at Gagosian and Larry Clark at Luhring Augustine, but I wouldn't describe those as "highlights." My favorite part of seeing Larry Clark was the "guard" or whoever the young guy in the hooded sweatshirt sitting at the edge of the gallery was. I was also amused to see that some people had come from the driving range at Chelsea Piers to see the Clark show, and left their golf clubs in the area near the entrance with everyone's umbrellas.
Sunday's Williamsburg highlights were:
- Schroeder Romero -- Eric Heist's "Leisure Management Corporation"
- Foxy Productions -- fun group show called "Blinky" that includes Paper Rad and Cory Arcangel. There will be performances related to the show on Friday, June 27, from 6-9pm. It should be worth a visit, after reading Tom Moody's description of an earlier Cory Arcangel appearance. He is the artist who hacks Nintendo code to create new works. We first saw the work of him and Paper Rad at Daniel Reich gallery. One of the other artists in the show, Sarah Ciraci, uses images of houses and other buildings in digital prints that turn them into UFOs. A little bird told me that she had to seek permission to use images of the Bilbao Guggenheim building by Frank Gehry, and the legal letter from the museum told her what edition size they expected her to use. Geez, they're getting worse than Microsoft.
- Speaking of intellectual property and fair use, the "Focus Group" show at Momenta, curated by Eric Heist, includes one of Perry Hoberman's modified computer dialogs, this time one that warns someone they're using a trademarked corporate advertising slogan, so they need to decide whether they're going to pay for the privilege or invoke a fair use argument. Nothing like that would surprise me were it to come to pass. The whole show is really strong.
- Black and White -- for the David Baskin installation in the courtyard, plus a photo by Meighan Gale and a pretty interesting painting by Andrew Piedilato. The Piedilato is somewhere between figurative and macho physical Ab-Ex painting. Tatyana the gallery owner told me he puts on some big yellow gloves and uses his hands to paint.
- Sheila Ross and Eric Trosko at Dam Stuhltrager. No web site, but you can find the gallery's contact info at Free Williamsburg. She makes mixed media drawings/collages with paint, contact paper, masking tape, etc. I think the work would have been better served by showing a few less of them. The overall effect of a bunch of them crammed together on a wall was dizzying. The meticulous and minimal paintings of Eric Trosko are somewhere in the realm of Wayne Thiebaud or Alex Katz, with something about them that makes one want to lick them.
- Jonathan Herder has a brilliant show at Pierogi 2000 in the smaller north gallery. He makes beautiful collages from postage stamps that have to be seen to be believed. I wasn't surprised when I learned they were almost all sold.
untitled (brown desert stampscape - self-regeneration), detail, 2002; stamp collage on paper; 14 x 17 inches
